Thanks to @cambridgebookshop.bsky.social for this wonderful window display featuring Keeping Hold!

Publication day! My book Keeping Hold: A Cultural and Social History of Possession in Eighteenth-Century Britain is out now. 20% discount code KEHO2026. www.cambridge.org/core/books/k...

🎉 Announcing the launch of an agenda-setting collection of essays exploring how art and art-history can transform understandings of health, illness, care and medical knowledge. Edited by @drfijohnstone.bsky.social Allison Morehead and Imogen Wiltshire 🧵 @durham.ac.uk @languagesdurham.bsky.social

18 month postdoc at the lovely IHR in London, $41,740. Deadline 7 March. 'The Fellow will play a key role within the IHR team responsible for hosting the 2027 North American Conference in British Studies (NACBS)' in London 2027. Repost to spread the word. #Skystorians

I'm delighted to share details of the first of two workshops I'm hosting this year on The Senses and Medical Humanities. The first workshop will take place in Durham on 24 February. Spaces are limited, so reserve yours now. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-senses...

Hi everyone, I'm organising a conference in Leuven, 4-5 June, and you're all invited*! It's called 'Performing evil: the mediation and display of diabolic spectres 1700-2000' and here is the call for papers (get in touch if you'd like a pdf!). Please share widely! *to submit an abstract before 21/3

Much needed good news: _Sick Jokes_ is in production @katiesnow.bsky.social @lauracowley.bsky.social Our brilliant authors have written chapters on the intersection of visual culture, humor, and health (see ToC) And we're thrilled with the cover from @manchesterup.bsky.social - more in next post.

Lovely to see _Art and the Critical Medical Humanities_ out in open access format!! Co-authored a chapter with my humor co-conspirators @katiesnow.bsky.social and @lauracowley.bsky.social - and so many other brilliant folks included in this volume!! www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?do...

2025 has been a rotten year for most early career postdoctoral researchers, especially in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. For a better 2026, check out (or repost) this short thread on a free resource for UK-based SHAPE PhDs within 10 years (excluding career breaks) of the doctorate. 1/3

Really looking forward to roundtable on Plantation Goods happening at UoB this Friday. All welcome! www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/round...

Huge thanks to @annafranjam.bsky.social and @rebeccawhiteley.bsky.social for organising such a fantastic day of 'Object Stories in Health and Medicine, 1700-1900', and to all speakers for sharing such thoughtful approaches to this fascinating and wide-ranging field.

I have signed up and I can't wait!

Join me online at 10am GMT this Friday for my talk: 'Straightening Childhood: The Le Vacher Machine and Maternal Regulation of the Body in Georgian England.' I’ll be exploring how mothers read, managed & reshaped children’s bodies through the corrective device featured below, and others like it 👇

Still time to sign up for our online event *Object Stories in Health and Medicine* on Friday 5 December! We've got a fantastic programme with panels on Wearable Objects, Object Biographies, Representing the Body, Personal Papers and Domestic Health. One week today @rebeccawhiteley.bsky.social

Still time to sign up for our online event *Object Stories in Health and Medicine* on Friday 5 December! We've got a fantastic programme with panels on Wearable Objects, Object Biographies, Representing the Body, Personal Papers and Domestic Health. One week today @rebeccawhiteley.bsky.social

Only a few days until registration closes: Nov 30th #18c #BSECS2026 Make sure you get registered. When it is closed, it is closed!

It's here! Our special issue of JECS (journal of @bsecs.bsky.social), a bumper vol of cutting-edge interdisciplinary research on 18c networks, gender, sociability & manuscript, deriving from @maryhamiltonpapers.bsky.social project. I'll be skeeting today about the contributions in turn...stay tuned!

At last our special issue, JECS 48.4, is out, all 200+ pages of it! We're very proud of it. Thanks are due to many colleagues, but especially Nuria Yáñez-Bouza for proof-correcting heroics, and the general editor, Emrys Jones, for brilliant support throughout. #18thC #langsky

Thrilled to be part of this special issue and to see my article, "I was so ill, and so low…’: Women, Mental Health and Strategies of Care in The Mary Hamilton Papers' now online #openaccess @maryhamiltonpapers.bsky.social #mentalhealth #womenshist onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

I’ve be co-editing a special issue of @histhum.bsky.social with @sarahvmarks.bsky.social on Recovery and rehabilitation in mental health: historical perspectives Our Intro article is available now! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

A few more tickets remain for the poetry reading at the @byleaveswelive.bsky.social on Wednesday, Nov 19, 1.30-3.30pm. We'll talk about the ways in which poets represented their experiences as patients and doctors throughout history.

2 fantastic-looking history of medicine research fellowships at Warwick: Traumatised Minds, Neurosis and Hysteria in Soviet Medicine and Culture, 1917-1953 www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPK288/r...

RETHINKING RIGOUR: a two-day symposium on creative-critical research in medical humanities organised by the NNMHR. Explore method, assessment, and new possibilities for scholar-practitioners. 🗓️ Dec 4–5, Durham + online 🎟️ Free via Eventbrite: nnmh.org.uk/rethinking-r...

North American scholars come and work at Birmingham for a month. Deadline 15 November! #nacbs www.birmingham.ac.uk/about/colleg...

We will return on 18th. November with Emma Marshall, who will present 'Remote parenting across the life-cycle: evidence from letters about children's health, c.1650-1750'. Further details can be found through the link. www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

I was the recipient of the Ann Ball Bodley Visiting Fellowship to Women's History at @bodleian.ox.ac.uk in 2023 - and can't recommend this fellowship enough. An amazing place to research, read and write. Deadline 28th Nov 2025 for applications #womenshist

I’ll be speaking about the very object featured below - the Le Vacher machine - and how mothers in Georgian England used devices like it to 'straighten' children’s bodies. #HistMed #MaterialCulture #MedicalHumanities #18thCentury

Painting created by Brenda Marshall c.1957 in the art therapy studio at Netherne hospital, Surrey, where she was compelled to live. A substantial number of her works survive, they explore painful & traumatic family relationships, details of which are sometimes noted on the backs of her paintings

Less than a month to go until our free online workshop *Object Stories in Health and Medicine, 1700-1900*. Friday 5 December from 10am GMT. Tickets available through this link!  www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/objec...

ARCHIVAL FUNDING: Ann Ball Bodley Visiting Fellowship in Women’s History, to use Bodleian Libraries collections to advance scholarship in women’s history, of any geographical area and historical period. Deadline 28th Nov. www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/csb/fellowsh...

#HistMed #HistSTM #DisHist and #MatCult folks - this online event's made for you 🗃️👇

Less than a month to go until our free online workshop *Object Stories in Health and Medicine, 1700-1900*. Friday 5 December from 10am GMT. Tickets available through this link!  www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/objec...

Interrupting the madness of reality to share some exciting news: the first Centre for Mad Culture in the UK will be launched in Edinburgh on 17 October! Below I have listed all the other activities planned by the Centre (including my own poetry workshop). Book your free tickets and see you there!

Booking is now live for our exciting online workshop Object Stories in Health and Medicine 1700-1900! See the full programme and grab a ticket here: www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/objec...

Bodleian Library, Sassoon Visiting Fellowship in South Asian and Black History for the 2026-2027 academic year. It's a great scheme, with a deadline of 28 November 2025. Check it and Bodley's other visiting fellowships out here.

I'm planning an interactive workshop on the senses and medical humanities, to be held in Leeds in July 2026. It will involve creative practitioners, academics, and clinicians. If this is something you'd be interested in attending, please drop me a message or reply to this post and we can chat more!

The 2026 SSHM Conference will be @universityofleeds.bsky.social. The theme will be In/Out and we are inviting papers that consider experiences of being in and/or out of health or health care in any period or geographical location. #HistMed #HistSTM sshm.org/sshm-2026/

We're putting on an exciting range of research events this year at @manchester.ac.uk on 'Queer Bodies' in 18 & 19C Britain. Colleagues in English, Art History (@emmamerkling.bsky.social), & History are exploring queer approaches to bodies and embodiment and their cultures. See poster for more!

New season of "In the Same Vein" has launched!! My wonderful (graduated) master's student Jan and I interview @agnesjuliet.bsky.social about surgical myths and stereotypes & why a historian's perspective is vital in health policy and practice, among other topics! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...

Reminder that the deadline for proposals is Monday 6 October!

Join us next Wednesday (8-10) in person at the IHR or online from 5:30pm to Dr Richard Ansell’s paper ‘Travel Journals and Other Traces of Servants on the Grand Tour’. Register with the following link: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/... Richard outlines the paper here: www.tiktok.com/@long18thcen...

Our call for papers deadline is a week today! #medhums #histmed #histpsych

10 days until the #CFP deadline for the online workshop *Object Stories in Health and Medicine 1700-1900*. We invite proposals for 15-minute talks on a single object related to health or medicine during the 18th & 19th centuries #histmed #histpsych #medhums www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/objec...

Excited to read this @miladaskalova.bsky.social #histpsych

I really enjoyed speaking about my new book with Dr Miranda Melcher for the @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social podcast 📖 Now available online! 👇📻 newbooksnetwork.com/birth-death-... @universitypress.cambridge.org @uoearchhist.bsky.social @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social @uniofexeternews.bsky.social

New this week in 'Transactions of the Royal Historical Society'. "Us and Them: Disability Ethics, Oral History and Inclusive Praxis in the Reuse of Asylum Photography", by Alana Harris and Laura Mitchison bit.ly/4gH9e0f #Skystorians 1/2

⭐ Our Curator of Art Collections has contributed three new biographies on women artists for this month's #ODNB update. Read her Introduction and new entries in the link below! 👇 #ODNB #WomenInArt

And if that's not enough for you, then later the same day, 2) 'Objects, Images, and Spaces of Health' roundtable on 2 new books: Tillmann Taape's 'Crafting Medicine' & Jack Hartnell's 'Wound Man' (free, online CHSTM #histmed working group, also meeting 10 Oct & 14 Nov): www.chstm.org/group/object...

Forthcoming events on objects in the history of healthcare #HistMed: 1) 'Object Stories in Health and Medicine, 1700-1900' @unibirmingham.bsky.social (5 Dec, free, online. CFP deadline 6 Oct. Organised by @annafranjam.bsky.social & @rebeccawhiteley.bsky.social): www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/objec...

The launch of my new @manchesterup.bsky.social book Songs of Seven Dials will be at 6pm, Tues 21 Oct, at Waterstones Covent Garden. I'll be in conversation with the wonderful @julialaite.bsky.social. Please do come along. Free tickets, but register in advance www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/songs-of-s...